December 09, 2004

NAZIS AND THE FAR LEFT REDISCOVER EACH OTHER

No one can deny that Yasir Arafat had a dynamic talent for inspiring admiration and emulation. His gang`s massacres of children on a schoolbus from Moshav Avivim and at a school in Ma`alot — achievements the killer of JonBenet Ramsey could never hope to match — paved the way for similar atrocities committed at a school in Beslan, Russia.

Arafat`s attention-grabbing series of airplane hijackings set the standard for the new generation of terrorists who took his invention and improved upon it on September 11, 2001.

In death, he continues to inspire, and is already sorely missed by "progressives" and neo-Nazis who share one thing in common — enthusiastic support for the slaughter of unarmed Jewish men, women, and children — and who sound eerily alike in their online remarks praising the PLO chief and cursing the Jews.

After years of monitoring the hate speech disseminated by conservative radio and Internet (one of my reports is cited in David Brock`s recently released The Republican Noise Machine), I am forced to conclude that the "politically correct" vitriol of the Israel-hating activist Left makes the venomous rhetoric of right-wing ideologues seem mild by comparison.

Am I exaggerating? Let`s look at the comments on Arafat`s death and the Mideast crisis on two neo-Nazi websites — WhiteCivilRights.com, run by Nazi/Klansman David Duke, and Stormfront.org, a disturbingly successful hate site currently under investigation in connection with the desecration of a Jewish museum, cemetery, and synagogue — and two of the most heavily trafficked left-wing websites — DemocraticUnderground.com, dedicated to "the exchange and dissemination of liberal and progressive ideas," and SmirkingChimp.com, described in a laudatory Nation magazine article as "a website with 25,000-plus registered members, founded after the 2000 election as a gathering place for liberals, progressives and leftists who felt the newly elected president reminded them most of, well, a smirking chimp."

(At Democratic Underground, members appear to be evenly split for and against Jew-killing; at Smirking Chimp — where criticism of recent kidnappings and beheadings will get you banned, but writing that the victims "got what they deserved" will keep you a member in good standing — the support for Arafat`s terrorism was overwhelming.)